'Well, I thought I'd ask,' he said. 'Couldn't hurt. Thanks for your time.' He started to get up.

Logan stopped him. 'But the McNeil thing. You're really going ahead on that? My guy still might settle, but who knows for how long? I think you're missing a bet.'

'That could be.' Hardy conveyed that clearly he believed it was the least of his worries. And in spite of all his talk about Cole and Cullen, carrying that message to Logan was the primary reason for his visit here. Maybe the news that McNeil wasn't going to settle would flush something. He smiled politely. 'It wouldn't be the first time.'

Driving up from Jupiter to his office, he stopped on 7th Street and this time got lucky with Strout. The coroner, lanky and laconic, knew Hardy from several trials as well as his days as an assistant district attorney. It didn't matter that he was doing defense now. Generally, Strout had no ax to grind over which side the courtroom you called home. He was a scientist who dealt in medical facts, equally useful -or not – to both the prosecution and the defense.

It was near the end of the workday and he came out himself to the lobby to let Hardy back into his office, a large room filled with medical books and a famous collection of murder weapons from antiquity to the present. Many were under glass, but an equal number – including a reputedly live hand grenade on a candlestick pedestal on his desk -were out there for anybody to grab, wield, and use. Hardy could read the upside-down title of the book that was open on Strout's desk: The Golden Age of Torture – Germany in the 15th Century.

'There's a sweet-looking little tome,' Hardy remarked. 'Keeping up on the old research, are you? Are they teaching that in med school now?'

Strout lifted the book, ran a finger fondly over the open page, put the volume back where it had been. 'If you ever wonder why cruel an' unusual punishment made it to the Bill of Rights,' he drawled, 'you don't need to look any further'n this. The stuff people was doin' to one another back then, just as a matter of course.'

'Slightly cruel, was it?'

The coroner chuckled. 'I tell you, Diz, the least of 'em is more'n most people would believe anybody without serious mental problems ever did to one another. And here we got our judges splittin' hairs over what's cruel and unusual, what the foundin' fathers meant. They all ought to read this book, settle their minds on the matter. I mean, this tongue clamp here, for example-'

'John.' Hardy held up a hand. 'Maybe another time, huh?'

'Not your area of interest today?' Strout settled into the chair behind his desk, chuckling contentedly. He reached for the hand grenade and threw it gently from one hand to the other. 'No. Lemme remember. Cullen Alsop.'

'Ten points.'

Strout nodded and came forward. His hands hovered an inch above the desk and he bounced the grenade nonchalantly on the blotter. 'Well, it was pretty much what I thought it might be. Heroin overdose all right, as expected. I asked the police lab to do a quick analysis of the heroin left at the scene, and it's really their report I'm drawin' on more'n anything in the blood itself. But let's just say in laymen's terms that if he used one syringe, which needle marks indicate – he's only got the one fresh one, relatively speaking – then it was very pure stuff.'

'And there's no doubt that was the cause of death?'

'No.' He was bouncing the grenade again, thinking. 'There was some trace alcohol and if we ran down to the C-scan level, odds are we'd find other drugs. But this was heroin.'

'And higher quality than what's on the street?'

Strout lifted his shoulders. 'I don't know. It might be what's on the street now although with each passin' hour, that becomes less likely.'

'Why is that?'

'Because if stuff this pure is out there, we'd have seen at least a few more overdose deaths. You may 'member late last summer, one weekend one of the dealers brought up a new load of brown tar that hadn't been cut? No? Well, it killed seven kids in four days.' Strout clucked in dismay. 'But now, we got Mr Alsop so far and that's all.'

'And that means… what?'

'By itself, nothing definite. But it could mean a few things. One,' he let the grenade fall to the blotter and held up a finger, 'the boy was dealing himself, checking out the product, guessed wrong on its potency. Two,' another finger, 'he knew what it was and decided it would be a painless way to kill himself. And three, somebody else knew what it was and gave it to him.'

'Which would have made it a murder.'

A shrug. 'Out of my domain, Diz. Absent any sign of struggle or motive or anything else, I'm listin' cause of death as accident/suicide. Have you talked to Banks?'

'Ridley?' Hardy shook his head. 'Not since Wednesday night, and not for lack of trying. He hasn't returned my calls. But even Wednesday,' he added, exaggerating slightly, 'I know he didn't like the timing of Cullen's death. The day he gets out, he's dead, he can't testify. So what's the deal, do you think? Somebody set Cullen up to sink Cole, then somebody killed him before he could. It doesn't make any sense.'

'Yeah, but so little does anymore, Diz.' Strout picked up the grenade again, hefted it casually. 'Maybe Banks'll come in with something,' he said. 'I'm sure he's looking.'

Hardy sat with it a minute, then got to his feet. 'Well, thanks, John, you've been a help.'

29

Glitsky eventually persuaded his sons that he could probably take a shower, get dressed in his jeans and a light sweater, and make it to his favorite chair in the living room without stressing out too much about it. They didn't have to watch him continually – he gave his word he wouldn't go outside or do the long version of his tap-dancing routine around the duplex.

But both of them wanted to stay near him, and Abe couldn't say it bothered him. More, their obvious concern for him touched him deeply. It was good to have his family back together. Who could say when it might happen again? They gave Rita the afternoon off, then called Nat and asked him what he was doing. He came over with Chinese food -chicken chow mein and Happy Garden – and after lunch the three generations played hearts at the kitchen table for three hours. For the first time in years, the small kitchen echoed with actual laughter. Everybody caught up with each other, their lives in the last couple of years, swearing genially at bad play or bad luck, reconnecting.

When Orel got home from school, Nat left for the synagogue and the boys decided they'd get outside and shoot some hoops at the park down the street until it got dark. Glitsky had taken out his book and sat in his Barca-Lounger in the living room. In five minutes he had transported himself to the Mediterranean, where he prowled the shipping lanes off the Costa Brava looking for prize ships and booty.

The duplex had a west-facing front and on clear days, there was a short window of time just before dusk when the sun sprayed the room with light before it sank into the buildings across the street. The sudden glare made Abe look up from his book. He closed it.

Motes of dust hung in the room's air.

Elaine was walking with someone she knew. It was very late, nearly one o'clock in the morning. She'd left Treya that Sunday at Rand and Jackman in the late afternoon, and if Jonas was to be believed, hadn't come home to Tiburon. So she had stayed in the city – the two of them had probably met for dinner downtown.

Six hours? A very long dinner. Much to discuss, or one topic that consumed them? Perhaps cocktails afterwards.

She was leaving Jonas. It may not have been a dinner after all, but a romantic tryst at a hotel, or even the new man's place. That would at least account for the hours.